A passive optical network (PON) is one system for providing network access over “the last mile.” The PON is a point to multi-point network comprised of an optical line terminal (OLT) at the central office, an optical distribution network (ODN), and a plurality of optical network units (ONUs) at the customer premises. In some PON systems, such as Gigabit PON (GPON) systems, downstream data is broadcasted at about 2.5 Gigabits per second (Gbps) while upstream data is transmitted at about 1.25 Gbps. Ten Gbps GPON (XGPON) systems may have a downstream bandwidth of about ten Gbps and an upstream bandwidth of at least about 2.5 Gbps. PON systems may be based on burst mode transmission and reception, and typically involve high speed control signals. Small form-factor pluggable (SFP) and 10 gigabit form-factor pluggable (XFP) transceiver modules are examples of optical transceiver modules used in PON systems. These modules typically have a limited number of interface pins.